Frances Perkins Center honors college president

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The Frances Perkins Center will hold its fifth annual Garden Party at the Perkins Homestead in Newcastle on August 14 at 4:30 p.m. This historic property was the life-long haven of Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, and the celebration is designed to honor her and the accomplishments of those now championing her causes—social justice and economic security.

This year’s Garden Party will feature remarks by Lynn Pasquerella, President of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, Frances Perkins’ alma mater. Pasquerella is the 2013 recipient of the Frances Perkins Center’s Open Door Award. This award is named after the advice given to Frances Perkins by her grandmother, that when a door opens to you, you must walk through it.

A philosopher and ethicist whose career has combined teaching and scholarship with local and global engagement, Lynn Pasquerella’s first three years as Mount Holyoke’s president have been marked by a robust strategic planning process, outreach to local and regional communities as well as the world-wide network of Mount Holyoke alumnae, and a commitment to a vibrant campus community. Pasquerella has written extensively in the areas of medical ethics, theoretical and applied ethics, metaphysics, public policy, and the philosophy of law. She also is a passionate advocate for women’s education and credits her training as an ethicist with helping her reach beyond the academy to engage communities on issues of women’s empowerment.

The Garden Party will also feature the announcement of a new partnership with Mount Holyoke College and the Frances Perkins Center, and a special conversation in honor of Social Security’s 78th anniversary with Professor William Leuchtenburg, author Kirstin Downey, Charles Wyzanski, and Samuel Eliot.

Two other 2013 Frances Perkins Center award recipients, Sally Greenberg, Executive Director of the National Consumers’ League and Ai-Jen Poo, Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, will be honored at an event in Portland on October 4, co-sponsored by the Roosevelt Institute. Jeff Madrick of the Roosevelt Institute will host the panel discussion on “rediscovering government.”

Garden Party sponsors include The First, CEI, Christopher Breiseth, Tomlin Coggeshall, Sarah Peskin, Hon. Neil Rolde, and an anonymous donor. Wine, refreshments, and hors d’oeuvres will be provided. Free transportation to the Perkins Homestead from downtown Damariscotta-Newcastle will be supplied by Country Coach Charters.